Miso soup
According to Macrobiotics miso soup should be eaten every day at every meal and if you have been to Japan, you’ve probably been offered it even at breakfast.
Miso is made of yellow soya fermented for a long time. A grain is then added to the preparation, mainly rice or barley (choose the rice one if you prefer to keep it glutenfree).
Thanks to the long fermentation, miso contains millions of good bacteria and it is a very beneficial ingredient: it improves digestion, strengthens immunity, detoxifies the liver and improves the microbiota making your intestine work better.
After too much eating during the holidays, you might want to have it every day before lunch and dinner to detoxify your organism a bit.
I am posting here my version, but you can choose any ingredients you like. Just note that, according to macrobiotics miso soup should contain one vegetable for each energy. YIN –any vegetable that grows upwards such as green leaves, kale etc., YANG –any vegetable which grows downwards such as carrots, daikon and other roots etc., BALANCED YIN/YANG– any round vegetable such as onions, cabbage, pumpkin.
One last recommendation: forget the miso preparations you find in supermarkets or Asian shops. They do not have the same properties at all!
1 cup of water for each person
Vegetables as per taste (see above), diced or sliced : for 2 portions I have used 1 carrot, 3 kale leaves and 1 small onion
3 cm Wakame seaweed (if whole soak it for 10 minutes, if flakes use as it is)
2 cm fresh ginger, peeled
1 shitake mushrooms per person, sliced (if dry soak it for 10 minutes)
1 tablespoon miso for each person
Cut the vegetables and boil them in 1 cup of water per person with the wakame and the shitake until soft but still crunchy.
When ready, take one big spoon of water from the soup and blend it manually in a separate bowl with the the miso until creamy. Shred the ginger and then squeeze the pulp with your hands to get the juice into the soup. Turn the fire off and pour the miso into the soup and stir. Miso should not be added to the soup while cooking otherwise it will lose all its properties and the fermenting bacteria will die. If you are not going to eat the whole soup immediately, add the miso just to the part you are going to eat in a separate container/dish.